1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to grounding apparatuses, particularly to a grounding apparatus of a portable electronic device with a sliding mechanism.
2. Description of Related Art
Sliding cover mechanisms are widely used in portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Generally, such portable electronic device includes a base, a cover and a sliding apparatus, and the cover is slidingly mounted on the base via the sliding apparatus. The cover includes a liquid crystal module (LCM), and the base includes a circuit board. The liquid crystal module is electrically connected to the circuit board via a flexible printed circuit (FPC).
When the aforementioned portable electronic device is used, a high electrostatic discharge (ESD) may be generated in the LCM and the damage portable electronic device. For example, when walking on a carpet floor, a person can easily acquires static charge with high electrostatic. The static charge is likely to cause an instantaneous discharging between the body of the person and the portable electronic device. Thus, the discharging could possibly create an electrical current significantly enough to cause damages to the circuits of the portable electronic device. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the circuits of the portable electronic device to from being damaged by electrostatic discharge.
In use of the aforementioned portable electronic device with a sliding cover mechanism, a typical method to prevent the circuit from being damaged by electrostatic discharge is directly connecting the flexible printed circuit to a grounding plane for conducting the electrostatic charges. However, the flexible printed circuit usually does not have an enough conductivity to conduct an electrostatic discharge having a potential higher than a thousand volts.
Therefore, a new grounding apparatus is desired in order to overcome the above-described shortcomings.